• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

How Do You View Your Current And Childhood Self?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Cool Cat

MyPTSD Pro
Last night, I went to a party, would you believe it? And looking at the photos, I realise - I am not the person I was as a kid. I am not the shy sad scared child who was tormented day by day. As a young adult, I am much different. The persona I reflect is not my childhood self and I daresay, it is not fake either.

And still, I still am in many ways a sad scared child. I do have those two parts of me. My T said it's like I have my adult self - who has nothing particularly wrong with her. And my childhood self, which is deeply wounded and in need of all the things I didn't get as a kid.

Although I am confused with how to view it - let alone how to manage it.
 
My T said it's like I have my adult self - who has nothing particularly wrong with her. And my childhood self, which is deeply wounded and in need of all the things I didn't get as a kid.

I feel exactly the same.

Actually I wrote about this "double persona" plenty of times to help me figure out what it's about. In the end I think that our adult self (the responsible one, the one who is on the road towards being more or less mentally healthy), has a responsibility towards the "kid self" to help it get over its trauma. Our kid self can't get over the trauma alone, so "we" have to help it. But I am still in the process of figuring out how exactly.
 
I feel like I have many areas of arrested development. But I feel like I have nevertheless become a pretty interesting adult. I love parties. Especially kid parties. When I'm having a good day I can be the life of the party. I like to say "I bring the party with me".

And then there are the days when I go to the party and I spend half or more of the time locked in the bathroom crying because I feel like I'm a disgusting person and I will hurt the other 'good' people at the party if I breathe their air.

It'd be nice if my brain stopped hating me one day.
 
I'm reparenting myself. I am so lucky to have my children. In the process of appropriately parenting them (with guidance from lots of resources) I'm learning what should have happened for me and I'm forgiving myself for a lot of things.
 
I think I feel kind of fractured.

My adult self is miles from my childhood self. My T says I have a very strong, healthy adult self. People don't associate the me I am now with anything bad in my past. But the child me is still in there, still vulnerable, still suffering. Some days she surfaces.

When I read the bit about you looking at photos I thought back to childhood photos of me. For years I didn't see anything when I looked at them. Now when I look it seems so obvious that something was wrong. The child in those pictures is clearly unwell- pale, malnourished, and frequently miserable. My dad liked taking pictures of me when I was upset. He thought they made better art.

Sorry, not in a great place today.
 
I have discussed this with my T as well. I call it kid brain vs adult brain.

My adult brain is rational and says if your (now former) boss is yelling too much at people, etc. Then you should ask him to stop. That if I have too much on my plate I should be able to say "I need to do a, b, c, d, and e in x amount of time. I won't be able to finish it all is there something you would like me to prioritise?" And manage former bosses expectations. I think its scared kid brain that always stopped me from doing that because angry men frighten me.

To answer your original question. Yes I think I'm a different person than I was then. Which is good. But the child part is still there and hurting.
 
Yeah like I find my new 'self talk' is not positive self talk, it's more like youre consoling a child.

And like... is it possible to heal your inner child?
 
When I read the bit about you looking at photos I thought back to childhood photos of me. For years I didn't see anything when I looked at them. Now when I look it seems so obvious that something was wrong.

Oh I completely relate to this. Like I get angry when I look at old photos, wondering how the hell did no one cop on that something was wrong. I had such low confidence that there are very few photos of me as a child, I didnt even have the confidence to stand in front of a lens. All the adults always put it down to badness
 
My child self is extremely quiet, almost non-existing. My adult self has been extroverted, confident, able to make decisions, lead committees, mentor new colleagues, etc. But I felt the split, though I liked the adult me...felt like I was always running on fumes, over-working, burning out. So in slowing down it feels like the quiet, less sure, traumatized, and disappearing elements have come back. But it doesn't feel like it's all integrating right at this point because I feel like the child part is taking away my adult life. I never date, I don't enjoy my few friends, I'm quiet and relatively intolerant of anything unpredictable right now. I just want to crawl back into my shell. It's affecting how I relate to others, including at work, but not horribly. But my life is getting smaller and smaller.

I like to think I'm seeking safety to work through stuff but I'm ending therapy soon because of insurance and I wonder if this is what I will be left with...this child self that wants to be visible but is taking over the good parts of my life and f*cking it up.
 
Structural Dissociation Theory is a topic that may be of help with this fragmented feeling. Especially for people who feel that a certain 'part' of them is very capable while other 'parts' are out of control. It is not DID, but instead a less complex version that many therapists don't talk about to their clients.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top